
Directing
Born August 4, 1945 · Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
While still a student, Paul McCarthy threw himself out of a second floor window in a performance/action, emulating Yves Klein's legendary "Leap into the Void." McCarthy was an influential figure in the Southern California art and performance scene for decades before achieving international recognition. His performance work in the late 1970s explored areas of Dionysian and shamanistic initiation rituals, as well as the body and sexuality. The intensity of these performances, which often included the graphic depiction of taboo subjects, eventually led to his use of video and installation as primary media. Mining the depths of the family and childhood via kitsch and pop cultural detritus, the body and sexuality, and an often outrageous theatricality, McCarthy's works inhabit a violent landscape of dysfunction and trauma. In many of his works, he adopts a performance persona that appears crazed, witch-like, or infantile. McCarthy's works often involve liquids, from bodily fluids to paint; one performance involved mixing his own blood with food, an obsessive gesture that is simulated in Family Tyranny. In the late 1980s, McCarthy began using film and television sets as elements in video/performance installations. Often these elaborate fabrications involved the restaging of culturally-charged myths and icons, such as Heidi and Pinocchio, in the context of family psychodramas, Hollywood genres, and mass media.
NPP1P2, WAR PIG, Drawing Session
2025
A&E, Adolf & Eva / Adam & Eve, Mother
2025
A&E, Adolf & Eva / Adam & Eve, Cooking Show, Kitchen
2023

Coach Stage Stage Coach
2019
Aryan Death Ship
2010

Heidi’s Four Basket Dances
2001
Out O' Actions
1998

Fresh Acconci
1995

Painter
1995

Pinocchio Pipenose Household Dilemma
1994

Heidi: Midlife Crisis Trauma Center and Negative Media-Engram Abreaction Release Zone
1992

Bossy Burger
1991

Rocky
1976

Class Fool
1976

Experimental Dancer
1975

Black and White Tapes
1975

Sailor's Meat (Sailor's Delight)
1975

Basement Clown
1975

Sauce
1974

Red Poster Tapes
1972
Ma Bell
1971
Wolf-Pig

Becoming Paul McCarthy
2020

Coach Stage Stage Coach
2019

The Art Foundry
2014

Paul McCarthy: Destruction of the Body
2001

Heidi: Midlife Crisis Trauma Center and Negative Media-Engram Abreaction Release Zone
1992

Family Tyranny (Modeling and Molding)
1987

Cultural Soup
1987

Class Fool
1976

Black and White Tapes
1975

Sailor's Meat (Sailor's Delight)
1975

Sauce
1974